SF's private surveillance state - 48 hills
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SF's private surveillance state - 48 hills
""All people are by nature free and independent and have inalienable rights. Among these are enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining safety, happiness, and privacy." The prescience of this section is hard to overstate, especially as those inalienable rights have been attacked. Specifically, the right to privacy has progressively eroded in San Francisco thanks to partnerships between the police and private companies."
"In 2019, San Francisco banned the use of facial recognition technology and nearly two dozen other municipalities followed suit shortly after. The hallmark vote in the city did little to stop the police from heavily surveilling protestors the following summer, as SFPD used a network of private security cameras to monitor Black Lives Matter protestors in late May and early June."
"Another example of this predatory partnership is Flock Safety's extensive network of surveillance cameras, storing the public's information on private servers and sharing it with a variety of federal agencies. Similarly, SFPD's Real Time Investigation Center, which recently moved to a new location downtown thanks to a $9.4 million donation from crypto billionaire Chris Larsen, represents the logistical hub of the network. Far from making us safer, these partnerships have demonstrably destructive effects on our civil liberties and put the most vulnerable members of our community in the crosshairs."
California's constitution declares inalienable rights including safety, happiness, and privacy. Those privacy protections have progressively eroded in San Francisco through partnerships between police and private companies. In 2019 the city banned facial recognition, yet police used a network of private security cameras to surveil Black Lives Matter protestors in late May and early June. Private firms like Flock Safety operate extensive camera networks that store public data on private servers and share it with federal agencies. SFPD's Real Time Investigation Center functions as a logistical hub after a $9.4 million donation from Chris Larsen. ACLU NorCal's Seeing Through Surveillance documents severe costs of unchecked surveillance.
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